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Tuesday, November 04, 2008

BERLIN (EJP)---A few days before the commemoration of the 70th anniversary of Nazi anti-Jewish pogroms in Germany known as “Kristallnacht”, a rabbi in Berlin and 8 rabbinical students were attacked on Saturday night by two hoodlums

Rabbi Yehudah Teichtal, who serves since 11 years as rabbi of Chabad Lubavitch, one of the three Jewish communities of the German capital, was returning in his vehicle with the students after attending a Jewish event in the city when the two aggressors began to chase the rabbi's car.The two men, driving a Mercedes Benz, braked in front of the rabbi's van and then reversed back towards it while shouting anti-Semitic insults."The rabbi then saw the driver light up an unknown object and throw it towards his van," the police said, adding that the rabbi could not explain what the object was.The students managed to jot down the license plate of the attacking vehicle, which they reported to the police together with the complaint about the offense.Shmuel Segal, Rabbi Teichtal’s assistant, expressed the hope that police “would do all within their power to find the criminals.”"This event encourages us to continue our Jewish oriented activities in the city. In every case we encounter instances of darkness. We are motivated to increase our efforts to spread out more light," he told EJP.He said the Chabad community is due to open a new Mikveh, or Jewish ritual bath, in a few days.

Last year, a smoke bomb was thrown through a window of the community’s kindergarten and anti-Semitic slogans were spray painted on its walls. The Rabbinical Centre of Europe (RCE), which provides assistance to rabbis across Europe, expressed shock at Saturday's aggression.“We are totally shocked to find time and again, that particularly the country that should have been dispersing messages of tolerance to all European countries, has been once again the arena of a severe anti-Semitic incident,” it said."We maintain that Berlin must put an end to nationalistic and neo-Nazi organizations within its boundaries, otherwise, we have no guarantee that history will not repeat itself,” the Brussels-based centre said.